New North Bridge Heatsink

[lazaroff]

So, I ordered one of these mainboards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157141

And, as you can see, the heatsink on the northbride is huge, and leaves no space for any PCIE cards, what kind of heatsink can i order to replace the original one?

 

[rohan23]

You won't need one. A card should clear that fine.

 

[lazaroff]

look at the x1 slot, ima need like an extra 5 inches past that for my sound card, but it wont fit because of that monster heat sink

 

[setishock]

That design to be very blunt is crap. The northbridge chip is smack center of the heatsink. If you replace the heatsink with a smaller one you'll still have the same problem.
Besides the fact that northbridge chips run very hot as a rule and the heatsink solution is designed to give max cooling. That board is badly designed in my personal opinion. That X1 slot is in a really bad location limiting it usefullness, as you found out. The slot controler card ate up a lot of the boards real estate forcing some aspects of the board to crammed in to non-usefull locations.
I'd look at another board.

 

[rohan23]

Why not just put it in a 16x slot? Are you running a multi card setup?

 

[lazaroff]

well damn, too late for that. But if i get a heatsink with a lower profile it might be enough room that that the end of the sound card fits over it.

But I'll have to compare the effectiveness of the two heatsinks to each-other first, don't want to melt right through a $200 dollar card and a $100 dollar board

my sound card is an Asus Xonar Essence STX

look at the photos, compare them to the mainboard photos.
I have no idea how PCIe slots work, but if you think sticking it in another slot might work, I am willing to try it before my warranties run out
thanks for your help, i'l give you more information if you need it

 

[Remeniz]

Use the blue PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot instead!

No need to mess around with the NB heatsink....

 

[rohan23]

1 and 16 just represent the number of lanes that module has. You can always put a smaller number into a larger number but not the other way around. I guarantee it will work.

 

[Remeniz]

1 and 16 just represent the number of lanes that module has. You can always put a smaller number into a larger number but not the other way around. I guarantee it will work.

Do what he says.

 

[lazaroff]

my video card is also x16

which card should go in green and which should go in blue?

green is x16 mode
blue is x8 mode